The Space Between
by Haldiriell
Summary: Part 3 of "Even The Stars Burn". Anthea Harrison was saved from death by her husband's blood, but it has changed something in her. As she struggles to adjust to the transition, Khan fights to provide for his people on a primitive world amongst dwindling supplies, and winter is setting in. On a supply run, they learn that when it comes to change, sometimes resistance is futile...
1. Prologue

**-Prologue-**

_Sitara_  
_The Beta Quadrant_  
_2261.105_

Anthea Harrison leaned against the sink as her vision swam. Her husband ran his fingers over her back, cupping her shoulder in one of his large hands.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"This- What's happening to me?" Anthea met his gaze in the mirror over the sink. "Sometimes I'm fine, and sometimes I feel like I'm about to explode."

Khan Noonien Singh drew her back against him, arms strong around her. "This has never happened before," he told her in a soft voice. "The rest of us were all created at conception. I do not know what changes it's causing in you."

Anthea hung her head, then turned in his arms, burying her face against his chest. "How did you know I would be stronger?"

Khan pressed his lips to the top of her head. "You broke Yves's finger when he was checking your unconscious response to stimuli, while you were in the coma."

She snorted a surprised laugh. "Really?"

"Really."

"Then why do I feel weak today?"

It had been three days since Anthea had awoken from her coma, after she'd stupidly aggravated a brain injury acquired two weeks before when one of Khan's men had struck her in the head. That man was now dead, as dead as Anthea had nearly been. Khan had killed him for his betrayal.

She'd been warned not to do anything to raise her blood pressure, because it might tear the injured blood vessels and tissue inside her head. She hadn't been thinking when she'd gone after Marla McGivers for trying to seduce Khan; she'd just been enraged.

Anthea had nearly paid for that mistake with her life. Only a serum that Khan and Yves had created, with the help of Leonard McCoy, had saved her life. And just barely. She'd hung on the verge of death for days, her body not sure what to do with the DNA-altering serum.

The changes it had wrought in her came and went in sporadic waves, as her body adjusted. What the final result would be, they didn't know. It wasn't turning her into a super soldier like Khan and his men, at any rate. Her reflexes varied between fast and sluggish, no in between. Sometimes she was strong enough to bend metal, others she could barely lift her eighteen-month-old son.

"I want it to stop, Khan," she whispered. "I don't like what it's doing."

"I know, my love, and I wish I had answers for you." Privately, Khan was still afraid that there was a chance she could outright reject the change. He'd been so optimistic when she'd awoken healed and alert and strong. But that had lasted such a short time.

"Even if I go back to normal," his wife mumbled into his chest, "I'd be okay with that. I just want it to pick something and stick with it."

Khan ran his fingers through her hair. "I know," he repeated. "I wish there was something I could do, but I'm at a loss."

Anthea pulled away and wandered into their quarters aboard the Reliance. They'd been planning to move out of the ship and into their completed cabin, but with everything Anthea was going through at present, having her close to the medbay and their doctor seemed the best option.

The two living spaces were lightyears apart, in terms of technology. The plumbing in their house was turn of the century. Turn of the twentieth century, that was. There was a well out back, and a small cistern atop the cabin to create water pressure for the interior. The cistern was part of a dismantled cryotube from the twentieth century, one of the ones Khan and his people had slept in for nearly three centuries.

Inside the starship, however . . . First of all, it was a warp-capable starship, a small-scale prototype of the now-defunct USS Vengeance. The Reliance could reach warp twelve in bursts, and fire its weapons while at warp. More importantly, it had sonic showers, air conditioning, and replicators, all of which were things that Anthea, at twelve weeks pregnant, greatly appreciated.

"I need to lie down," she said, as she swayed in a somewhat drunken fashion towards the bed.

Khan caught her arm and guided her to it. "I take it one of your legs isn't working as well as the other one?" he asked wryly.

"That and I have morning sickness," she reminded him.

"Ah, yes." He helped tuck her into bed. Sitting on the edge, he said, "Part of me wants to scream at you for doing precisely what Doctor McCoy and Yves both told you not to do. But I think you know very well how close you came to dying."

"Didn't you tell me I technically did die?"

"Your heart was stopped for two minutes. That's not precisely dead."

"Close enough."

"Too close," he agreed. "Your anger at McGivers nearly cost your life, and that of our child. Please do not do that again."

Anthea flung an arm over her eyes. The lights were too much suddenly. "My brain is healed."

"I meant, do not risk our child's life. Or yours. I will not hesitate to chain you to the bed if you insist on doing stupid things."

"Good luck finding a chain," she retorted.

"Anthea."

She sighed and lifted her arm to slit one grey eye at him. "I know, I know. Don't do stupid things. I've got it."

Khan bent and kissed her forehead. "Would you like me to bring Nolan in, to nap with you?"

"No," she said after a moment. "If I need to run to the loo and puke, I don't want him in the way."

"He misses you."

Behind her arm, Anthea felt tears well in her eyes. "I know. And I miss him. Maybe . . . maybe after I sleep, you can bring him in to see me?"

"That I will definitely do. Rest, my love."

Khan shut out the light, to let her sleep. He stepped out into the corridor, where he was met by his sister.

"How is she?" Kati whispered.

"The same," he responded in kind, and sighed. "I wonder if it would have been more merciful- I do not know what would have been worse, Kati. We saved her from imminent death . . . But it seems that the cure is slowly killing her."


	2. Chapter One

**-Chapter One-**

_2261.112_

Khan made Anthea wait until she'd managed to go a week without keeling over dead, figuring that was long enough to decrease the chances of it happening, until he let her rejoin society.

Kati, Khan's younger sister, had been visiting for hours at a time, teaching her sister-in-law how to hand-stitch things. It was fairly easy to do and gave her something to concentrate on in the times she felt like doing something with her hands. So Anthea gathered her small container of sewing things, and the baby dress she was working on, and went out to join the other women in the shade, where Kati held a sewing circle. Not all the women were into sewing, but a small group of five or so were.

They greeted her with smiles all around, save for Marla McGivers, the normal human woman who had left the Enterprise's crew to join their colony. Anthea had slapped her on her first day on Sitara. The other women didn't much like Marla, seeing her as the reason Anthea had nearly died.

Petty as it was, Anthea didn't feel like disabusing them of the idea.

She settled into one of the rudimentary chairs Joachim had made. The eighteen-year-old, the youngest of Khan's people, had taken up carpentry as a hobby before they'd been exiled from Earth, and liked to practise it here, on their new planet. He had carved the mantlepiece in their new home, which was still unoccupied.

"When are you and Khan moving into the cabin?" Kati asked, as Anthea sat down. "It seems such a shame to have it ready and unused."

"As soon as I'm feeling better, I suppose, though I'd really like to move in now." Anthea pulled out the dress she was making. It was simple, but would go on a baby easily. She didn't know why she was making a dress; they didn't know yet what the gender was of the child she was expecting.

Secretly, though, she was hoping for a girl.

The women chatted for a bit, as Anthea concentrated with trembling hands on placing one stitch, then another.

"What ever happened to that guy you were dating, Anthea?"

Marla's voice broke through her reverie, and she tried not to grimace.

"What guy?" Anthea asked.

The group of women had fallen quiet around them, everyone waiting in tense silence to see what would happen. They all knew Anthea didn't like Marla, and as Khan's wife and their saviour, of the two adversaries, Anthea had their allegiance.

Marla continued, oblivious to the changed mood. "That Kipling guy?"

Anthea looked down at the dress she was currently hemming. It was a long and tedious process, but making the clothes that her future-someday-daughter would wear was completely worth the sore hands and jabbed fingers.

"Commander Dunn was never officially someone I 'dated'," Anthea said finally. "He was a friend I occasionally shagged. And he died on the _USS Farragut_, as you well know, McGivers."

Marla shrugged. "I just thought you'd be more broken up about him, is all."

"I was never in love with Kip. I _am_ in love with Khan." The difficulties with her change, along with Marla's continued obnoxiousness, brought Anthea's cruel streak to the surface. "Of course, you know that Khan infiltrated Starfleet as John Harrison, yes?"

Marla's big, brown eyes blinked. "What?"

"Mmm. Yes. The man who blew up the Kelvin Archive, attacked Starfleet Headquarters, destroyed San Francisco? Our wonderful leader."

"That was- That-" For once, Marla was completely speechless.

"You really had no idea, did you?" Anthea asked. "You had no idea what you were getting into when you came to join us. You romanticised Khan and his people and thought it would be a grand adventure, didn't you?"

Marla was still shocked into silence.

"I think you broke her," Kati put in.

The redhead floundered like a fish for a moment, then blurted, "But _why_ would he do that? Starfleet is-"

"An organisation that took an entire civilisation captive and forced their leader to work in slavery for a year to design weapons for them, continually threatening him and his people, and then put him _back_ into cryosleep when they were done with him, after he tried to get away and to free his people," Anthea interrupted harshly. "Everything Khan did to Starfleet? Admiral Alexander Marcus brought that on them himself."

"But . . . Admiral Marcus died in the crash of that ship, trying to save the city . . ."

Anthea laughed. "You are so incredibly gullible, McGivers. Khan killed Admiral Marcus."

Several of the women smirked at Marla's naivety.

Leaning forward, holding the little bundle of fabric so she didn't drop it, Anthea said, "Look. I'm telling you all of this because, as you're now a citizen of our colony, you really should know the truth. Admiral Marcus was designing weapons and ships in an attempt to start a war with the Klingons. He was using Khan to design those weapons. Khan managed to escape and Marcus sent the Enterprise after him, on an unsanctioned assassination mission. Kirk opted to capture my husband rather than kill him outright, and Marcus tried to destroy the Enterprise in revenge and to cover up what he'd done. Khan and Kirk manage to take the Vengeance from Marcus and Khan killed the admiral, which prevented a war. Starfleet then captured Khan again and put him in cryosleep without a trial, for twenty months, during which _I_ had to give birth to and raise a child on my own."

Anthea felt her insides burble, then realised the little flutter was actually _her baby moving_. She completely forgot about Marla and pressed a hand over her belly, all her attention riveted on the tiny life inside her.

Marla had lost her attitude and openly stared at Anthea. "But how are they, we, here?"

It took her a long moment to drag her attention away from her small miracle. When she did, it was to glare at the other woman. "I was Starfleet Intelligence and I worked on the weapons project. I was Khan's assistant, actually. That's how we met. When he disappeared, after Starfleet imprisoned him, I spent over a year trying to locate him and his people. After I found them, I freed them and brought everyone here. And if it were up to me, _you_ wouldn't be here."

Marla's nose pinched. She stood, tossing the blanket she'd been hemming on her chair, and stomped away.

Kati reached over and touched Anthea's arm. "Are you alright? Do I need to get Khan?"

"No, I'm fine. I was . . . It's nothing. I think I'll go find him myself, though."

She packed her things in the tote Kati had made her, and went to find Khan where he was having a conference with Otto, Chin, and Inigo.

"Kaiserin!" Otto greeted her warmly, with a one-armed hug around her shoulders. "How are you today? I have not seen you since you woke!"

"I'm as well as I can be, Otto," she said. "Mind if I steal Khan for _just_ a moment?"

One brow lifted in curiosity, Khan followed Anthea a few paces away. It was still within earshot for his men's heightene hearing, but he knew that they'd tune out whatever it was Anthea wanted to tell him.

"What is it?" he asked.

She grinned. "I know it's silly, but I wanted to share it. I felt the baby move!"

A broad smile spread across his usually somber face. "You did? That is wonderful news, Thea."

"I know you can't feel it yet, but . . . I've been worried, with everything. Yves has been checking its vitals every day, yes, but it's not the same as being able to _feel_ the baby."

"I can hardly wait until I _can_ feel our child," he told her. "But I look forward most to when I can hold him or her. Does that make me . . . unmanly?"

She stood on her toes to kiss him. "Not at all. Real men have a hand in caring for their children."

"I take that to mean you aren't letting me out of diaper changes this time around."

Anthea snickered. "Not on your life. I had to do thirteen months of those all by myself. The least you can do is pick up some of the slack and change the baby whle I'm trying to sleep."

Khan cupped her face in his hands, fingers tangling in the brown strands. "When I first realised you were changed," he whispered, "I thought, 'She can survive this for certain, having this child in this wilderness.' But with what you're struggling with now, I am even more afraid than before."

"Don't be! Women have had babies for thousands of years and been fine. I've already had one."

"Under the best care available," he pointed out. "Yves is good, but our facilities are somewhat lacking."

"Why are you so afraid?" she asked him quietly.

Khan pulled her close, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "Growing up in India . . . The health care at that time was appalling, especially for women. They caught infections and died, or they bled to death in childbirth, or the doctors would overlook something while the mother was pregnant and it would kill her and child. And this was the country that _created_ me, that could manipulate genetics to bring about a race of superior beings. And yet, mothers died every day, whether giving birth at home or in a hospital."

Anthea wasn't sure how to respond to that, so she hugged him hard. "I'm not going to die, Khan. I won't. I refuse to."

"I nearly lost you once, Thea."

"But you didn't. You saved me. And I trust you'll do it again if you have to."

Khan ducked his head and kissed her, quick but tender. "You're pale again," he murmured. "Go back inside and lie down."

"I'm going to lie down in the _house_," she told him. "Our bed is just sitting there, unused, and I haven't lain in it in months."

He chuckled. "Do that, then. You have the monitor with you?"

She held it up. It had originally been a communicator, modified into a baby monitor, currently pressed into walkie-talkie service so Khan could keep an eye on his wife and she could reach him at any time.

Anthea went and found Nolan in the playpen near where Kati had been watching him. Her little boy brightened when he saw her, his smile rivalling the sun, and he chirped, "Mama!"

"You look tired, No. Let's go take a nap."

She reached down to pick him up, but her left arm failed her and she nearly dropped him. His little by heavy body slipped through her grasp. Heart pounding, she put extra effort into the stronger arm and hauled him up, clutching him close.

Only Kati had seen. Her sister-in-law asked, "Are you alright?"

"Fine," Anthea replied tightly. "No worries."

Nolan patted her face. "Mama?"

"Mummy's fine, No. Come on. Let's have a lie down, shall we? Mummy will tell you a story."

Blue eyes crinkled, Nolan beamed at her. "Pwince Noony!"

The previous month, Anthea had told her son a fairy tale version of her romance with Khan, casting him as a prince who was captured by a dragon, and herself as the princess who rescued him. Ever since, "Prince Noonien" had been Nolan's favourite character and he begged constantly for tales of his exploits. She was running out of tales to adapt from Khan's past-what he'd told her of it-and would soon have to resort to making things up entirely.

She sighed. "Okay, I'll tell you a story about Prince Noonien."


	3. Chapter Two

**-Chapter Two-**

Given that Anthea had begun to feel fetal movement, Yves wanted to do an ultrasound. Khan was there for it, had dropped everything he'd been doing when Anthea had told him.

The advancements in ultrasound technology astounded him. He had needed one back in the 1990s to locate a bullet fragment in his left shoulder, but that hadn't been anywhere near the same as what he saw now. The wall monitor clearly showed, in three dimensions, their thirteen-week fetus. It was curled up, thumb hovering near its mouth. Stubby little legs kicked lazily.

Khan stared in wonder. A rapid clicking emerged through a device on Anthea's belly, just above where Yves used the ultrasound wand. "Is that sound the heartbeat?" the father asked.

Yves nodded. "_Oui_. That is your _bébé_'s tiny heart. You see, it is nine centimetres from here to here, or about three and a half inches."

Khan looked at his hands for reference, realised how huge they were. Anthea leaned over and held thumb and forefinger roughly three inches apart across his palm.

"That big," she said.

He blinked at her. "That's so small!"

"It will get bigger," she assured him. "Nolan was rather large and he was five weeks early."

Yves looked at her sharply. "You delivered the boy early?"

Anthea glanced up, nodding. "He was fine, though. Better than fine, actually. If I hadn't _known_ I got pregnant when I did-and early ultrasounds confirmed that conception date-we all would have thought I'd conceived him at New Year's."

Khan looked at the image of their new child, but he smirked a bit. That New Year's Eve was still very vivid in his memory, entirely because it had involved a very illicit tryst with his wife as the ball dropped. From the way Anthea blushed, in response to his smirk, she remembered it just as well as he.

Yves was oblivious to the exchange, his attention split between the ultrasound wand and the readout. "Would you like to know the gender?" he asked the expectant parents.

Anthea looked to Khan. "We can tell this early?"

"This is a much better visual than they used to be, so yes," Yves assured her. "Thirteen weeks is adequate. And it is obvious to my eye."

Khan looked at the image. "Why not?"

Anthea shrugged. "I waited to know with Nolan, but sure, I'd like to know now."

Yves pointed to the relevant area. "See here? You are plainly having a girl."

She couldn't help but grin. "A girl? You're sure?"

"Oh, yes. Unmistakable. An, ahh, 'innie', not an 'outie'."

Khan snorted at the doctor's choice of phrasing, and lifted Anthea's hand to his mouth, kissing the back of it. "Sarina," he said.

His wife grinned up at him. "Our Sarina. Sarina Elizabeth?"

"I like that," Khan said with a nod. "The question is, Sarina Harrison, or Sarina Singh?"

"Singh," she said without hesitation. "And Nolan can use that, too, if he wants. I'm a bit used to and attached to Harrison for sentimental reasons."

Yves printed off a picture of the baby. "You do not want your husband's name?"

"I _have_ my husband's name," Anthea said. "_Legally_, I'm married to John Nathaniel Harrison, not Khan Noonien Singh."

"Living in sin," Khan snickered. "Cheating on poor John with another man."

"Oh, shush."

* * *

Anthea sat on the big, king-sized bed from their home on Earth, with Nolan in her lap, teaching him how to count on his fingers, while Khan laboured moving things around in their bedroom. At the moment, he was in the process of dragging a chest of drawers. While he could bench press nearly a ton, it didn't mean he did it _easily_. The problem was more that the chest was awkward and unwieldy.

"How," he asked, pausing to gauge the space he was planning to put it in, "did you get this aboard the ship?"

She shrugged, absorbed in playing with Nolan's tiny fingers. "I had the robot move everything. I left _most_ of the furniture in London, only brought the essentials to San Francisco, and then packed all that up when I made off with you. Nolan and I camped out on the floor for the last two days of our stay on Earth, didn't we, sweetie?"

Khan arched an ebony brow. "You _slept on the floor_?"

"Oh, I had a bed of sofa cushions, don't worry. It wasn't the floor-floor. You _are_ bringing the sofa in, yes? Because I don't want to spend most of this pregnancy sitting on wooden furniture with no padding between my bum and the seat."

He just gave her a look and went back to moving furniture.

"The weather's cooling finally," Anthea said. "It's been raining fairly regularly. I think we should start preparing for winter, just in case."

"Yes, I was thinking that myself. We seem to be in a climate that does experience varied seasons, though I can't say _how_ varied. I want to prepare for blizzards and be pleasantly surprised."

"Bizzad?" Nolan repeated. "Wassa bizzad?"

"Blizzard," Anthea corrected. It amazed her how advanced her son was. With Augment genetics, especially with Khan as his father, Nolan was, at least mentally, far more developed than his eighteen months would normally grant. He could grasp concepts a three-year-old could, and spoke nearly like one, too, aside from a lisp on his Rs. His body hadn't quite reached the same point, though he was also large for his age.

Khan assured her this was normal for their kind, and that they all developed swiftly but in different ways. Anthea had realised early on that no parenting book was going to be of much use here, and was relying mostly on instinct and Khan's knowledge of their people.

Her right hand spasmed in the middle of an impromptu gave of Patty-Cake, Anthea clutched it to her stomach.

"Mama?" Nolan yelped. "Mama huwt?"

Instantly, Khan was across the room, kneeling on the edge of the bed. "What's wrong?"

Annoyed, Anthea waved him off. "My hand spasmed for a moment. It hurt, but I'm alright now."

Ignoring her irritation, Khan took her hand. "Squeeze my finger," he instructed.

She did.

"Squeeze it!"

"I _am_!" she cried. "That's as tight as my fingers will go."

Frustrated tears spilled out and down her cheeks. Khan heaved a sigh and moved off the bed. Without a word, he moved back to the dresser, gave it a final shove to push it into place, and stormed out.

Nolan's little head swivelled around. "Mama? Dada mad?"

"Not at me," she told him gently. "Not at you. Mummy is . . . not feeling well, and he can't help."

There was a knock at the door, and Anthea looked up to see Kati there, with her adopted-and still unnamed-son in her arms. Since the infant was only a few months old, a name didn't totally matter at the moment.

"I saw Khan leaving," her sister-in-law said. "Did you fight?"

"No." Anthea shook her head. "I had a . . . small attack and he's angry because he can't do anything. You know Khan. He has to be in control and able to fix everything."

Kati nodded before Anthea even finished speaking. "Yes, I know him well. For longer than _you_ have. Do you have a minute to speak?"

"I've nothing but time," Anthea pointed out dryly. "What's up?"

"Let me get Nolan settled in his room," Kati said, and that instantly made Anthea suspicious. "Would you watch Pandu for me?"

"Pandu?"

Kati shrugged. "It's what I have been calling him for lack of a name. It is Hindi for 'pale'."

"I can't hold him. My arm isn't working very well today."

"He may lie here, that is fine." Kati put the baby down, picked up Nolan, and carried him out.

Anthea studied the baby, her adopted nephew. He was pale enough to be albino, with big, lavender eyes, and little webbed hands and feet, which he flailed when he noticed her looking at him. He grinned, a big, toothless smile Anthea couldn't help but return.

She didn't notice Kati come back, or that she closed the door, until she spoke.

"You are being unnecessarily cruel to Marla."

"What?" Anthea looked up, frowning, as Kati joined her to sit on the bed. "Kati, she tried to sed-"

Kati held up a hand, cutting her off. "No. She tried _once_, before she knew Khan is married. She has made no other overtures towards him. In fact, she seems to be developing affections for Barton. I know you are angry over what has happened to you, and what is happening to you, but you should not take it out on Marla. That is also why Khan is angry."

Anthea looked down at her hands, at the ruby ring Khan had given her when they'd married. Funny, she thought, how Kati had never mentioned it, even though it had been her mother's. She swallowed, suddenly feeling ashamed. Kati was right. She _had_ been mean to Marla, had even known while doing it that she was.

"So why is _Khan_ mad?" she asked in a whisper.

Kati lifted Pandu up, placing the baby against her shoulder. "He feels you attack her because you cannot attack him, that you blame him for what has happened."

Stricken, Anthea shook her head. "No, no! I don't, not at all!"

Her sister-in-law arched a brow. "Do you truly not?"

She had to think about it for a moment. Did she blame Khan for this? She'd once been so angry at him for leaving her, for lying to her, not knowing that he'd been protecting her from Marcus and that he'd been imprisoned, essentially entombed in a cryotube with the rest of his people. She had forgiven him fairly quickly. But was she angry at him again?

No, she decided, slowly shaking her head again. "No, I'm not mad at him for this. The universe, maybe, but not Khan. He couldn't know what this would do to me. He was just trying to save me."

"Hmm. Then why are you angry at Marla for something so much less significant?"

"Because she tried to take what's mine!" Anthea exploded. "Khan is all I have, and he was coming to get me and Nolan, and she tried to- I lost him once, Kati, I can't bear the thought of losing him again!"

"Has it occurred to you, Anthea, all that Khan did to get you back?"

Anthea fisted her hands in her lap, but her left one didn't cooperate well. Why was the universe and everyone in it being so harsh with her? "Yes," she whispered.

"Good." Kati leaned over, pressed the back of one hand to Anthea's forehead. "You are nearly as pale as Pandu, and you are chilled. Rest. I will tend Nolan."


	4. Chapter Three

**-Chapter Three-**

Anthea was lying on her left side, with her knees drawn up, when Khan came back. He paused in the door and watched her for a long moment, before crossing to the bed and stretching out beside her, on his side to face her.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Are you angry with me?" she asked.

"Why on earth would I be angry with you?"

She sniffled and reached out to run a finger along his collar. "Kati . . . said some things."

He threaded his fingers through her hair. "What did she say?"

"That I'm being unfair to Marla. That you think I'm mad at _you_. That you blame yourself for what's happening to me."

Khan released her hair and caught her hand, interlacing his fingers with hers. "Kati is . . . sometimes self-righteous. She didn't see what I rescued you from. She doesn't know what you went through, and she doesn't know what you _are_ going through. She had seizures, and I'm sure she thinks that is equivalent. She can't understand your anger. I can, because I have . . . been in a similar situation."

They didn't have to say the man's name. Both knew of whom he spoke.

"But, she has a point, to a degree. Marla is not a threat to us, Thea. I have no interest in the woman, and I never will. And while I personally find your antagonism towards her amusing and gratifying to my ego, the truth is that you are essentially my queen, and we cannot let you seem to be partial to some and hostile towards others."

Anthea sighed. "I know. I just have this . . . fear and anger, and I don't know where to direct them."

He tugged her close and kissed her forehead. "Thea, my Thea. You can speak of it to me. Anything at all."

"I'm scared," she told him. "I don't know what's happening to me, if or when it will stop, what it might do to the baby . . . I feel useless. I can barely hold my own child because I might drop him. And you've barely touched me in weeks."

"I'm holding you right now."

"That isn't what I meant, Khan. We haven't made love since we were on the _Enterprise_. I know why. You're afraid to hurt me."

"You're right. I don't want to hurt you. I could never forgive myself if I did."

She shook her head. "I can't guarantee that you won't, but Khan, I can't stand this."

He rolled away and sat up, elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. "Anthea, if I lost control and hurt you-"

Anthea rose on her knees and wrapped her arms around him. With her chin on his shoulder, she asked, "So you plan to not touch me until I'm better? What if I'm never better? What if this is how I'll be for the rest of my life?"

Khan put his hand on her arm, fingers curling around her wrist. He stroked her forearm with his thumb. "I should have found another way to save you."

"_What_ other way? You know how long it takes to extract enough of your platelets to do any good. I could have died in that time. Hell, I _did_ die in that time. But you brought me back."

"Not as you were."

Anthea pressed her cheek to his. "I may not like what's happening to me, but I would take this over death every time. Because I'm _here_."

Khan twisted, dragging her into his lap, and rolled her to the bed. Her breath caught as his weight settled against her.

He grabbed her arms and raised them over her head. "You can tell me to stop at any time."

She laughed wickedly. "As if _that_ will happen."

There was a loud knock at the bedroom door, and through it, Kati called, "If you are going to be occupied, I will babysit Nolan at my house."

Anthea blushed. Khan only laughed, and shouted back, "_Very_ occupied! Go away!"

"Khan!" his wife protested.

"We have a child and another on the way," he pointed out with amusement. "Sometimes, I am surprised that you can still be so . . . very . . . British . . ."

And he kissed her.

* * *

Anthea didn't want to apologise to Marla, though she knew she should. She knew Marla hadn't been aware Khan was her husband, but it still made her angry. She felt as if the universe were constantly trying to separate them.

With Nolan in tow, she ventured out into the village, to seek out Kati. A cool wind blew through the village. Anthea pulled her sweater closer and cast a dark look at the sky. Otto, come to speak to Khan, greeted her.

"Rain," she said glumly. "Within maybe half an hour."

"How can you do that?" Otto asked, as he, too, looked up.

"I grew up in England," she explained. "I'm very good at predicting wet weather."

"Ahh." The big man nodded. "Should you not be inside, Kaiserin?"

Anthea shrugged. "Maybe. I feel restless, though. I've been inside and resting too long."

"Khan will not like it if you have a spell out here."

She snorted. "He won't like it if I have one inside, either."

Otto nodded. "That is true. Still, I would not want him angry with me for allowing you to be hurt."

"I'm fine. I'm just going to see Kati."

Her sister-in-law didn't live too far from her own cabin, just down the slight hill. Kati looked relieved to see her as she opened the door.

"Oh, good! You are here. I was going to find you," Kati exclaimed.

"What's up?"

"I cannot get Pandu to stop crying."

Passing Nolan off to Kati, Anthea swept into the two-room cabin and followed the sound of a crying baby to where Pandu lay on Kati's cot-like bed. She made a mental note to ensure everyone got bed upgrades when they made a supply run.

Conscious of her weak arm, Anthea lifted Pandu with the stronger limb, cradling the infant against her chest to take some of his weight. "Hush, sweetheart. What's wrong?"

Rapidly, she checked for fever or signs of colic, things she had learned during her first pregnancy but hadn't had to deal with when Nolan had been born. Pandu didn't seem to be ill, but he was red-faced and screaming, jaw working as he blubbered.

"Ahh," she said, and she popped her thumb into his mouth.

He made a surprised sound, lavender eyes blinking tearfully, hiccuped, and began gnawing on her thumb with his toothless gums. Immediately, the colour began to recede from his little face, and he grunted around her digit.

Kati looked baffled. "What did you do?"

Anthea gave her a distracted smile. "Apparently, he's teething. Sooner than I expected, but I don't know much about Brinthi biology. I've got a box of baby things, including a teething ring or two. Let's go get him one."

She carried Pandu carefully over the short distance to her own home, the baby happily gumming her thumb, while Kati brought Nolan along. Anthea set Pandu on her own bed, and the baby shrieked in protest.

"Kati, let him chew on your thumb while I hunt for that teething toy."

Her sister-in-law did as instructed, bemused by the action. "I thought it would hurt."

"No, the only one hurting right now is Pandu," Anthea replied, from the open door to the nursery. "He needs pressure against his gums so his teeth can come through faster and stop hurting him. Aha!"

She came back with a box full of small baby items. "Here we are. Let's see . . . I've three of these, Pandu can definitely have one."

"Do you not need these things for your child?"

Anthea shook her head. "No, I've plenty. Nolan was picky about his, but you really only need one." She plucked one from the box and handed it to Kati. "Try this."

Kati took the blue plastic ring and replaced her thumb with it in Pandu's mouth. Wordlessly, Anthea handed a burp cloth over.

"He'll drool," she warned.

It took the baby a few minutes to figure out the chew toy, but soon he was happily drooling all over his hand, the toy, and the burp cloth, his head leaned against his mother's shoulder.

"You are a miracle worker," Kati said with a sigh.

"Not really, just a mum who's been there." Anthea cast a wry look at Nolan, who tottered into the room with his pet tribble.

Khan had, apparently, named the tribble while Anthea had been in her coma. The chosen appellation? Spot. Nolan was too young to get the joke, unfortunately.

"Let's sit in the living room," Anthea suggested. "The sofa's better for visiting."

"I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you getting my son to quiet down," Kati murmured, as they settled on the sofa. "He has slept only a little all day, and was up most of the night."

"You're very welcome. I know exactly how it is when they first start teething." Anthea watched as Nolan plopped his small rump in the middle of the rug and set in on petting Spot. She didn't know much about tribbles, to be honest, but Spot didn't seem to mind Nolan carting it around. She'd never once heard the tribble protest any rough treatment, though she knew they could do so.

Kati patted Pandu's back. The baby, just four months old, seemed blissful now, eyes half-closed as he gnawed on the plastic. "I was afraid you were angry with me," she admitted.

Anthea sighed. "I was for a little while. But I talked with Khan about it. You're right. But I don't _like_ Marla. I don't _want_ her to be here. And I don't know how to . . . get past my anger at her for sneaking into my husband's room in the middle of the night to throw herself at him."

Kati's dark eyes widened. "She did that?"

"Yes. It wasn't just making a pass at him. That I could ignore. She invaded his privacy to . . . offer herself to him." Anthea grimaced.

"I see." The darker woman shook her head. "I was not aware of that. I am not saying you do not have a right to be angry, but . . . it was a mistake she has not repeated, yes?"

"No, she's kept her hands to herself."

"Then forgive the mistake, but do not forget. She is terrified of you, Anthea. I doubt she has seen any violence in her life, until you struck her. I am not saying she did not need to be put in her place, for she did. Khan is our _raja_, you are our _rani_. And she needs to defer to you."

"But I can't be cruel to her individually, I know. Khan told me that." Massaging her left arm with her right hand, Anthea shifted on the sofa to draw her knees up. "I'm just so _angry_ and _scared_ all the time."

"It will get better, I am sure. Sometimes I forget that you are not a warrior like the rest of us." Kati reached out with the arm not holding Pandu, and patted Anthea's knee. "If you need to talk, I am here to listen."

"Thanks, Kati. That means a lot."


	5. Chapter Four

_A/N: Sorry for the delay, I went to Salt Lake Comic Con, then had to recover._

* * *

**-Chapter Four-**

It had been some time since Anthea had written in her log, the one she kept addressed to her parents that she doubted they'd ever see. She'd made a difficult choice in leaving them behind on Earth, and she missed them daily, wondering how they were doing, what they had been told by Starfleet about her defection.

Khan had set up her computer terminal in their bedroom, by the window with a view over the lake, and she sat there after Kati left, Nolan's nonsense babble to his pet a soundtrack for her thoughts.

_Mum and Dad,_

_I haven't written in a while. Some things happened and I_  
_wasn't really up to doing it. Remember how I mentioned_  
_that Rodriguez fellow? He betrayed us, and when we were_  
_attacked by Klingons, he gave me and Nolan over to them._  
_He hit me, and- I woke up in captivity, injured and sick,_  
_with Nolan to protect. I was so scared. I didn't know_  
_where I was, or who had me, and when I found it was the_  
_Klingons, I could have died of fright. I had to stay_  
_strong for Nolan, though. My precious little boy._

_Khan found us and brought us home. I don't want to think_  
_about what he did to the Klingons. He says they're all_  
_dead, and that's good enough for me. He could have wiped_  
_out their entire species, and I would be fine with that._  
_I just don't want to picture it._

_There's a woman here, Marla McGivers. I'm having personal _  
_issues with her. She attempted to seduce Khan while the _  
_Klingons held me prisoner, and I am having such a hard _  
_time getting over it. Nothing happened; he kicked her out _  
_of his room, but . . . still, he let her come to live with _  
_us, and even if it isn't very logical, it makes me anxious _  
_and angry. I don't doubt his love for me and his loyalty. _  
_But I live in fear that she'll try again._

_I nearly died. I was injured, in my brain, and I nearly_  
_bled to death inside my head. Khan saved me, in a manner_  
_of speaking. I'm alive, yes, and that injury is healed,_  
_but he used the cure for Kati to do it, and it's done_  
_things to me. I have moments where I am so strong, I'm_  
_afraid I'll hurt Nolan by accident. Sometimes I can see_  
_things so clearly. My reactions at times are faster than_  
_I've ever experienced. But most of the time, I'm weak,_  
_weaker than I was before this. My left arm doesn't work_  
_very well most of the time, and my legs sometimes don't_  
_want to behave properly. I can never predict when these _  
_things will happen. I would give anything to go back to _  
_normal. I don't care about being strong, or anything. I _  
_just want to be able to function again._

_I'm scared that this will never stop, or that it will _  
_kill me. Khan and Yves don't know what's happening to me. _  
_Yves scans me every day, to track the changes. He says he_  
_can't find a pattern. I know he and Khan blame themselves,_  
_but I don't blame them. I'm alive, aren't I? Still, I_  
_don't like that it's happening to me, that it's make it_  
_difficult to hold Nolan, or Pandu, for fear of dropping_  
_one of them. I don't know what will happen when Sarina is _  
_born._

_I'm having a girl, by the way. We've just found out. _  
_We've decided to call her Sarina, after Khan's mother. _  
_Sarina Elizabeth Singh. Elizabeth being Mum's middle name,_  
_you know. I hope that I'm . . . better by the time she's _  
_born. I want to be able to hold her without fear that I'll _  
_hurt her._

With a sigh, Anthea saved and closed the file. She rose from the desk, taking a moment to regain her balance. She longed to nap, but she knew that would be wallowing.

Nolan's bright laughter reached her, from where he played in his room. Her little boy was ever her light in the dark.

Forcing a smile that she hoped would soon be a real one, Anthea went to play with her son.

* * *

It rained non-stop for the next four days. The sky was dark with angry storm clouds, and the lightning and thunder frightened Nolan. Khan and Anthea spent those nights with not only a toddler in their bed, but a tribble as well.

"Really?" Khan whispered to his wife, when Nolan crawled into their bed and passed out with the ball of fur in his arms. "The tribble, too?"

"You know how he is about Spot." Anthea smoothed Nolan's hair. The boy's head was tucked under her chin, the purring tribble wedged between his small body and her chest. "Spot's his security blanket."

Outside, thunder rumbled. Nolan flinched in sleep.

"It's alright, baby," Anthea murmured to him. "You're safe."

He opened bleary blue eyes. "Dwagons," he mumbled.

"No dragons here, sweetheart. Daddy made them all go away."

"'Kay." And with that, he dropped back into sleep.

Khan huffed a silent laugh and kissed the back of Nolan's head. "Have you told him about the baby yet?"

"Not as such, but we've discussed it in front of him. I didn't know if he was old enough to understand."

"Mmm. Tell me about his birth."

Anthea shifted a little, so that Nolan's weight wasn't cutting off her circulation to her arm. "Tell you what about it?"

"Anything. I hate that I wasn't there."

"And I didn't get anything of it recorded. It happened rather quickly, as far as births go. I was told to expect ten to twelve hours, perhaps more, but it was over in five. They tried several times to stop labour, but nothing worked. Every time they gave me something, it just got _worse_."

Khan trailed his fingers along her arm. "Why did they try to stop it?"

"Because I was only thirty-five weeks along. I had five weeks 'til my due date, and he was considered premature. I was at work, taking dictation from Admiral Brody, and I _very_ suddenly went into labour. I suppose I should have noticed that I'd been nauseated, and that he'd been very quiet the past day, but I didn't. I'd only just learned your real name and history, and I was . . . in a strange place."

Nolan squirmed between them, rolling over and nearly squishing his tribble. Spot squeaked in protest. Khan plucked the tribble out of the tangle and rolled over briefly, putting the animal on the floor.

Anthea continued when he'd settled back down. "Mum barely made it down from Edinburgh. Dad wasn't there, he came down later in the day. Lindy was with me nearly the whole time. I had him at the hospital there on base. It was . . . the most exhausting and painful thing I've ever been through, but so utterly worth it."

"Even worse than your 'testing' for Section 31?" he asked quietly.

She thought for a long moment, then nodded. "What they did to me there? That was horrible. But it pales in comparison to having to expel a child. And the pain medications kept wearing off. I suppose it's because I had his DNA in my blood or something. The exchange between mother and child. I never got a cold or anything while I was pregnant with him."

"Really? That's fascinating."

"Haven't been _sick_ this time, either. Not . . . from a virus or anything like that."

Khan reached over Nolan and slid his hand around the back of her neck, threading his fingers into her hair. "Yves is trying, my darling, to find answers."

"I know."

She wrapped her good arm around Nolan, hugging him close. Khan kissed her forehead.

Outside, the storm raged.

* * *

When the storm finally subsided, everyone emerged to the sodden outer world to assess the damage. A few roofs were leaking, but not badly. The "command centre" in the village square was a wreck, the tarpauline roof torn, the beams leaning to and fro, one snapped in half.

"Well," Khan said, after eyeing it, "I _was_ planning on building a town hall or something. I suppose we'll hold meetings in our cabin until spring, depending on how fast we can get something else built."

"It's big enough," Anthea said, but not enthusiastically.

"I'm not thinking of everyone in the village crowding in, just my council. And only as needed. I know you need your rest."

She grimaced.

"Yes, I know how you feel about that. You _will_ rest, however."

"We need better beds for everyone," Anthea told her husband, changing the subject. "And a crib for Pandu. A proper one. Winter clothes for everyone. Food we can store for when we can't hunt."

"Yes. I've been keeping a list." Khan held up his PADD. "Still, these conditions are better than those we lived under during our year of hiding."

Anthea shuddered. "I can't imagine that. How awful that must have been."

"It was certainly a rude awakening to many of us," he told her dryly. "Going from sleeping on silk sheets to dirt floors? Cots are virtually a luxury."

"That may be, but I want better for our people. I feel guilty for having more things than everyone else."

He looked up, his dark hair falling over his face, and brushed the stray fringe out of his eyes. "You have done more for our people this year than I have managed, Thea."

She frowned, rubbing her belly absent-mindedly. "I still get the feeling I'm not . . . I mean, it's not like Rodriguez, but I know that some of them only accept me because they're afraid of what you'll do if they don't. They accept me because they're obligated, not because they want to."

"It will take time," he assured her. "They need to get to know you. Those you spend time with daily like you. Branch out, get to know everyone personally. And don't expect everyone to automatically love you. Some of them don't like _me_ very much."

She feigned shock, a hand to her heart. "You? Surely not!"

Khan snorted. "You can earn their respect, but some are incapable of affection. Some of us are too . . . broken by our training."

Anthea leaned over to kiss his cheek. "The ones who don't love you just haven't seen you play peek-a-boo with Nolan."

He caught her around the waist, pulling her close. "And it's going to _stay_ that way," he said.

"Yes, yes. My lips are sealed. You know, I'm told Genghis Khan played with _his_ children and no one thought him any less scary for it."

Khan growled and nibbled the side of her neck. She laughed.

"I have an idea," she said, when he released her. "What if I went around to everyone and asked them what they need? Want, too. Things they don't have that would make life better here."

"That is a very good idea," he said, with a pleased nod. "Not things like food or bedding. We'll take care of that anyway. Things they _want_. Make certain they know we can't guarantee everything. It depends on what we can find. Perhaps, get a list of their top three wants?"

"Okay. And I'll take Nolan along. And apologise to Marla while I'm out and about."

He arched a brow.

"I don't like her, but I need to do it."

"Leaders often do things they find distasteful," he reminded her.

Anthea nodded and sighed. "I am all-too-aware of that, unfortunately."

If Khan could suffer a year in slavery for his people, she could reign in her pride and apologise to Marla. Even if it made her want to vomit.

Of course, that could have been the morning sickness talking.


	6. Chapter Five

**-Chapter Five-**

With Nolan in tow, and armed with her PADD, Anthea set out to meet with every citizen of their colony. She also made note, as she visited, of which of their people had begun to pair off. Some of the living quarters needed rearranging; a few who had been bunking with friends could now move into others as their previous occupants moved in with a new lover.

Kati joined her not long after she started, Pandu in a sling across her chest. "I think, come spring, we will be having weddings," she commented, as they took a breather around midday.

"I think that's likely, though Khan and I were married in the autumn. September twenty-eighth, actually." Anthea handed Nolan a carrot stick, which he happily chewed on. Carrots, they'd found, grew well in the soil here, as did tomatoes, squash, lettuce, and potatoes. Onions, however, did not, and they weren't sure why.

Her sister-in-law tipped her head. "And when is your birthday?"

"June twenty-nineth. Nolan's is October sixth. I . . ." Anthea paused. "It just occured to me, I know when _John Harrison_ observed his birthday, but I don't know what Khan's is."

"November fifteenth, 1970," Kati told her. "Or, as he's told me, 2222."

She breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. Then it's the same. Blast, I missed waking him up by two days for it."

Kati laughed. "I am sure he does not mind. He has never been much of one for celebrating it. Our people thought it was odd that his birthday was not a national holiday."

"As I understand it, your mum died around that time, so it probably brings bad memories. When is _your_ birthday, by the way?"

The other woman shifted Pandu in her arms; the infant drank greedily from a bottle, his webbed fingers tight around it. "May tenth, of 1972. You know . . . I am two years younger than Khan, and we are centuries older than you, but when we went into our sleep? Khan was twenty-eight, and I was twenty-six. In my mind, I am still twenty-six. I have thought about it, and the time we spent sleeping aside, Khan is only a year older than you, and I am a year younger."

Anthea blinked. "I . . . hadn't even thought about that. I keep thinking he's in his late thirties, because that's the age _John_ would be. I'm turning thirty-one this year, and _John_ was eight years older than me, according to Starfleet records."

"I think," her sister-in-law said wryly, "you may have more difficulty adjusting to our being out of time than we do."

"Maybe. I was . . . twenty-seven, nearly twenty-eight when Khan and I met. I thought he was thirty-six, not two hundred and eighty-eight. I generally try not to think about the math because it makes my head hurt."

A flock of birds went by overhead, making their way south as the weather cooled. Nolan watched them fly past, craning his neck and nearly toppling out of his seat backwards. Anthea caught him just in time, tipping him back into place with a hand at his back.

"Biwds!" he said gleefully.

"Yes, sweety, those are birds. Finish your lunch, please."

"I done!"

Anthea sighed. "No, you're not. One more carrot, then you're done."

"No!" He wiggled off the bench, under the table, and sat in the mud.

"Oh, for the love of- Nolan John Harrison, you get out from under there right this instant!"

Nolan rolled to hands and knees and crawled in the opposite direction, giggling as he did. Anthea had to rise from the bench, work her way out from between it and table, and circumvent the furniture before she could get to him, and by then, he was halfway across the square.

"Kati," she said, "I'm going to need another leash."

"I'll have one for you this afternoon."

Careful not to slip in the mud, Anthea took off after her son. He ducked between two cabins, squealing in delight, and disappeared.

"Nolan!" she yelled. "Get back here!"

"Noooo!" came his distant, laughing reply.

"Problems?"

She glanced over at the speaker, seeing with internal dismay that it was Marla McGivers, just stepped out of her door. "My son just ran behind your cabin. I . . . Do you mind helping me locate him?"

Marla had paint on her hands and a canvas apron on over her clothes. She wiped her hands on a rag and pulled the apron off as she said, "Of course."

Something Anthea had learned quickly is that toddlers are fast, and an Augment one was quick and slippery. She'd previously kept Nolan on a leash, but Klingons had torn that. Her son had been sufficiently scared by the experience to stick by her side, but that was evidently no longer the case.

"Which way did he go?" Marla asked, as she came over.

Anthea pointed. "That way."

"Does he do this often?" the redhead asked as they headed down the "alley".

Sighing, Anthea said, "More often than I'm comfortable with."

It didn't take long for the two women to locate and corral the wayward toddler. He was muddy and covered in leaves by the time Anthea caught him. She lifted him with her good arm, holding him tight despite his protests. He might have been an Augment, but for the moment, she was still stronger.

"Thanks for the help," she said to Marla, as they stopped by the woman's front door. "And . . . I'm sorry about the way I've been treating you. I've been unfair to you, and I shouldn't have been."

Marla's dark eyes studied her. "It cost you a lot to say that, didn't it? Look. I'm not after your husband. I was interested before I found out he's married, and before he threatened to kill me. Believe me, I'm _not_ interested any longer. The reason I'm here is because Starfleet was getting too . . ."

Anthea nodded. She wasn't surprised Khan had threatened the woman. With the stress he'd been under at the time, she wouldn't have been surprised if he _had_ killed the other woman. "Believe me, I completely understand everything Starfleet is too much of. Still, I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted," Marla said after a moment. "You should go get him cleaned up, he's a mess."

"Yes, I will definitely do that." Anthea hesitated. "We're going on a supply run soon. Is there anything that you want or need?"

"Art supplies," came the reply. "I always need more art supplies. Actually . . . I don't want to impose, but would it be possible, when you go on this supply run, for me to go with? I like to pick out my own canvases and things, and I know there's room on that ship. I'd try to stay out of your way."

Nolan started to squirm, and Anthea shifted him to her hip. "I'll talk to Khan about it. He has final say in everything."

Marla nodded, and without a word, went inside.

* * *

Given Nolan's general state, and her own by the time she'd wrangled him into submission, Anthea hauled him aboard the _Reliance_ to take advantage of the showers there.

Khan located her there, in the captain's cabin, as she redressed the stubborn toddler. "I hear you had an adventure."

"Yes, Nolan decided to go exploring," his wife said wryly. "Marla helped me look for him."

"And how did that go?"

"Fine. I apologised. I wouldn't say we've made up, per se, but . . . She asked if she could come along when we go on the supply run. I know you're planning on taking some of the men, so if you took Barton, it'd make sense to bring his girlfriend."

Khan's brow furrowed, eyes narrowing.

"What?"

"Who are you, and what have you done with Anthea?"

She snorted. "You and Kati are the ones who pushed me to apologise. I'm not making friends with her. She asked, I said I'd run it by you."

"Hmm." He nodded his head towards the doorway. "I was digging out some of the things you brought from Earth, and I found a crate marked 'junk'. I thought you might wish to deal with it."

"Oh, that. Yes." Anthea finished dressing Nolan, and passed him off to her husband. "Is it still aboard, or in the house?"

"House."

They headed back out, Khan lending Anthea a supportive arm. Inside the cabin, she located the crate he'd brought in.

"I'm guessing you got your things for your workspace?" she asked him.

"Yes, that's how I found this one. Nice of you to label it 'John's Office', by the way." His expression was sardonic.

She shrugged as she sat on the floor. "That's what it was, anyway. All of John Harrison's things. It took me a long while to be able to even go in the study, let alone pack everything up."

Khan set Nolan down, and the little boy scampered off to locate Spot. His father lowered himself to join his wife on the living room rug. "I tried to reach you," he told her. "When I was on Qo'noS. The calls wouldn't go through. I've a theory that Marcus was monitoring or blocking calls to your communicator."

"That's likely. I know I called you dozens of times, but I never got an answer. And then I got . . . your text. I'm assuming it was you, at any rate."

"The ship was crashing. I didn't have time for anything elaborate, and I didn't know if it would be a wasted effort, anyway. If Marcus had killed you . . ."

"He didn't. I don't think I registered much on his radar." Anthea unsealed the crate and Khan lifted the top off for her. "This is mostly just what it says on the tin," she told him. "Junk from my office in London, junk from my office in San Francisco. Oh, and that."

He lifted out a large ship model, done in black and dark grey. The _USS Vengeance_, nearly two feet in length, but still vastly miniature compared to the original. "This was in Marcus's office," he said. "How did you get it?"

Anthea took the model from him. "When they cleaned out his office, after his, ah, 'tragic sacrifice', Admiral Brody gave this to me. Since I'd worked on the project, and it was . . . strangely, something of you. She's an odd woman. I couldn't display it anywhere, obviously, so I put it away in this box."

She set the model aside. "I've a model of _Reliance_ in here, as well. I thought perhaps Nolan might like them as toys when he's older."

Khan once again picked up the model of the _Vengeance_. "Why not?" he said aloud. "After all, he _was_ conceived aboard the _Vengeance_."

She blushed. "We're assuming he was."

His blue eyes glinted. "I've done the math."

Anthea cleared her throat. "It could have been the _Reliance_, or at home," she pointed out. "We were . . . busy that week."

Khan grinned. "I like to think it was the captain's chair, though."

Her face flamed scarlet. "You _would_."

Finally, he put the model back in the crate. "It's the only _good_ memory I have of that ship, Thea, I'd like to keep it."

She reached out, caught his hand, and brought his fingers to her lips. "It's a very good memory," she told him. "I love you."

He shook off the sudden melancholy and pulled her into his lap. "As I love you. Now . . . do you think Nolan is sufficiently occupied . . .?"

"Not in the least. Drop him off with Kati so she can make that new leash she mentioned, hmm?"

"Have I ever mentioned how nice it is to have a sister willing to watch him at the drop of a hat?" he commented as he got to his feet.

"Is is, isn't it? Take Spot, too."


	7. Chapter Six

**-Chapter Six-**

"All is well," Yves pronounced, as he put away his equipment. "You are perfectly on schedule for fourteen weeks."

Anthea tugged her top back into place. "That's good to know. And everything's fine with the baby?"

"Oui." The doctor smiled.

Anthea wondered to herself what had driven the Frenchman to pursue medicine, but she'd never felt it her place to ask. He was as strong as the other Augments, but he wasn't inclined in the slightest towards fighting. It felt rude to inquire about their histories. Khan still kept things back from her; she didn't want gory details, really, she just wanted him to share with her, the way she shared with him.

"I have been considering your difficulties," Yves continued, gesturing to her arm, the one she unconsciously cradled against her abdomen. "May I examine your arm?"

She extended it, and he ran the tricorder over it.

"You have nerve damage," he said. "Extensive damage here, by your elbow."

"Yes," she said softly. "When I joined Section 31, they tortured me. Loyalty testing, they called it, but it was torture."

Yves looked up with hazel eyes, blonde hair falling across his forehead. "What did they do?"

"You can feel the scars, under my skin," Anthea told him. "I had them treated, but by the time I got the courage up to have it done, they could only regenerate the surface. They're still there underneath."

The doctor ran his fingers over her arm, probing for the deep striations of scar tissue. "I see. What did this?"

"A knife. They tied me to a chair and . . . interrogated me for three days. No sleep, no food, just enough water to keep me alive. I was a mess for the first six weeks after they decided I'd passed. I don't like thinking about it."

He prodded the lump of scar tissue at her elbow, and her hand jumped, fingers twitching, of its own accord. "Aha!" he exclaimed. "I think maybe your problem is that Khan's DNA, it is trying to fix this damage in your arm, but it does not know how. There is much scar tissue in the way."

"My superiors weren't particularly concerned, since I was never going to be a field operative," she said flatly. "They glued me back together, but that was about it."

"Shameful." Yves shook his head. "My theory is this: the serum, and Khan's DNA, they fix problems, oui? Mend what is broken. It fixed your head. But it also . . . aggravates how things are at present, because you are pregnant. It would like to fix the illness from the child, and does not know how because your body keeps changing from your pregnancy. It fixes, you change. It fixes, you change. So it thinks, maybe, that sick is the way you are supposed to be."

Anthea's nose wrinkled as she made a face. "That's incredibly stupid of it."

He shrugged. "It is a serum, it is not sentient. I think, perhaps, I can fix your arm, though."

She arched a brow. "And how do you propose to do that?"

Yves hesitated, then crossed to his desk and picked up a tool. He came back and held up the scalpel. "I put you under, I open your arm and cut out the scar tissue, we give you another transfusion, and let it heal properly."

She blinked, speechless with horror.

There was a knock at the door, and Khan stepped in. "Let what heal properly?" he asked.

"Madam's arm," Yves said, and quickly caught Khan up on his theory and proposed treatment.

Khan looked to his wife with a skepticism she couldn't help but mirror. "And how likely is it to work?" he asked the doctor.

"Eh, sixty percent? I do not even know how extensive the scarring is, but I suspect she will be better for it anyway. The scar tissue is pressing on her nerves, especially this, the radial nerve." He ran a finger down her arm to illustrate. "I can guarantee nothing."

Anthea looked at her arm. "What are the chances that it'll get worse?"

Yves stepped to his desk and did a few calculations on his computer console. "Approximately twelve percent chance that it will increase your difficulties. Eighty-eight percent chance it will improve your condition."

She heaved a sigh, looked at Khan. He shrugged.

"I'll try it," she said. "On one condition."

"And what is that?" Yves asked.

"You finally tell Kati how you feel. The two of you are driving me up the wall."

The doctor flushed, and Khan burst out laughing.

* * *

The thought of another surgery didn't bother Anthea. It was the unknown effect it might have on her unborn child that concerned her. Yves assured her, however, that the baby would be fine.

"These modern anesthetics," he told her, "are a marvel. They are not harmful to the child at all. Remember, we had you in a coma with them and the child is fine. I believe, too, that it being an Augment increases its hardiness in your womb."

She flattened her hand over her belly. "I just don't want anything to happen to her."

Khan rubbed the back of her neck. "The child will be fine," he told her softly. "Just relax, lie back, and we'll have this over with soon."

Anthea sighed and did as instructed. Yves put the hypo to her arm.

"Relax," Khan murmured. "I'm right here. I'll be here the whole time."

She blinked, closed her eyes-

-and opened them to one of the worst groggy sensations she'd ever had. "Ohh," she groaned, and gulped.

"Bucket," Khan said from somewhere near her.

Hands rolled her to her side, and she threw up. That same tender touch eased her back against the pillows and brushed her hair out of her face. She blinked up at her husband's concerned face as he swam into view.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

"Unngh."

"I'll take that as a no. We think the surgery went well. The readings indicate there isn't as much damage to your nerves as there was previously, and impulses go through from your shoulder to your fingers more smoothly. My blood healed you, so there's no scarring, but you might be sick from the anesthetic for a little while. You've been under for close to eight hours."

She mumbled something incoherent in response.

"Go back to sleep, my love. I'll be right beside you."

* * *

The second time Anthea woke, she was much more coherent, and not nauseated.

"I am," she said after a long moment, "sick of this medbay."

Khan helped her sit up and gave her some water. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired. But that's nothing new."

Yves came over to examine her arm yet again. He ran her through some exercises, and she found that her hand didn't shake like it had before. The strength in it was improved, as well.

"It should continue to get better," the doctor told her. "But for the next two or three days, I would like you to rest and try not to use it more than necessary."

She flexed her arm, noting the newly-healed pink skin. "My arm is so much more flexible. I hadn't even noticed how much movement I'd lost. Thank you, Yves!"

"You are welcome," the doctor said with a smile.

Anthea slid off the bed. Khan held her steady when she swayed.

"We fixed your arm, not the rest of you," he reminded her.

She waved him off and pointed at Yves. "Don't forget your end of the bargain, Yves. I get tired just watching the two of you dance around and stammer and behave like lovestruck teenagers. Shag her, you'll both feel better."

Khan clapped a hand over her mouth, though he was clearly struggling not to laugh. "That would be the anesthetic talking. Ignore her."

Leaving Yves flushed and, indeed, stammering, Khan hauled his wife out and back to their cabin.

* * *

After Khan and Anthea left, Yves occupied himself with tidying his already immaculate medbay. Khan said it was the anesthetic talking, but he knew Anthea, and knew she wouldn't forget, and she would badger him until he did as he'd said he would.

With a sigh, the blonde Frenchman went to his quarters and changed out of his scrubs and into his "civilian" clothes. As he did, he reflected that he had fought in battles, had roamed the war-torn streets of Paris with no weapons and just a first-aid kit to seek out the injured, had served as royal doctor to Khan Noonien Singh, and nothing had terrified him as much as the thought of going to Kati Kaur and confessing his love for her.

Well, almost nothing. Khan's wife scared the hell out of him, if he was honest, and he wasn't completely sure why. Yes, he was very fond of her, like a sister, but she was also the scariest person he'd ever met. And he was best friends with Khan, so that said something.

"You can do this, Yves Guillame," he murmured to himself, in his native French. So sad that his mother tongue was considered a dead language in this modern time.

He left the ship and made his way past Khan and Anthea's cabin. The sound of their son's laughter reached him, and he had to smile. What he wouldn't give for a child like that!

At Kati's door, he hesitated. His enhanced hearing picked up Kati talking to Pandu in what he assumed was Hindi. He only knew a few words here and there, mostly ones he'd picked up from Khan and a good lot of them unrepeatable in polite company. He smirked a bit at that.

Taking a deep breath, he raised his hand and knocked.

She answered the door after only a moment, dressed in an olive-green skirt, a blue top, and a tie-dyed sari she'd fashioned. Yves thought she was breathtaking, with her dark hair loose around her shoulders, her brown eyes wide and welcoming, full mouth curving up in a smile.

"Yves!" she said. "Come in! Tell me, how did Anthea's surgery go?"

"It went well," he said, as he stepped inside the small cabin. "She's recovering at home."

"That is good to hear! I am sorry, please, have a seat. I just brewed some tea, would you like some?"

He gulped. Now or never, he told himself. "Actually, there was . . . something I wanted to discuss with you. I am not good with words . . ."

"You seem fine to me," she put in. "Tell me, friend, what is bothering you?"

Friend! Dreaded word! He cherished being her friend, but it was not what he wanted. Anthea seemed to think Kati returned his feelings, but was she certain? Was she _right_?

"I do not want to be your friend," he blurted.

A flicker of hurt passed over her features, and he swore under his breath. That had not come out right at all!

"Have I done something?" she asked, in a small voice.

"No, I-" Swearing again, he did the only thing that made sense.

Yves crossed the short space between them, caught her by the shoulders, and kissed her.

Several stunned seconds passed, and he pulled away. His heart was in his throat, face flushed. Yves couldn't have spoken to save his life, so great was his mortification that he had _done_ it.

She blinked dark eyes, utterly surprised. Then she said, "Oh."

"'Oh'?" he repeated incredulously. "That is all you can say? 'Oh'?"

Kati smiled, and it lit up the room. No, it lit up his world. "Do be quiet, _priyatama_, and do not ruin this moment," she said, and she stood on her toes to kiss him again.


	8. Chapter Seven

**-Chapter Seven-**

The next morning, Anthea and Khan were dragged out of a sound sleep by a loud pounding on their front door. Khan pulled on a pair of trousers and went to answer the door, hair still mussed from sleep. Anthea was slower in rising, settling for pulling on a Betazoid dressing gown.

"You're certain?" Khan was asking Otto, as they stood just inside the door. It was raining again, and Otto was dripping.

"_Ja_, Kaiser," Otto rumbled. "All save yours."

"What's going on?"

Both men turned to look at her. Khan said, "Otto just informed me that Chin found the wheat supplies are ruined. They got wet during the storm and the containers are full of mold."

Anthea pressed a hand to her heart. "Oh, no. That means all we have left-"

"Is our portion, yes."

She went to the kitchen, leading the men. Khan lifted the cellar door and went down the short flight of steps. The flat stones tiling the kitchen floor were cold under Anthea's bare toes.

Khan heaved the two containers out of the hole. It wasn't much; they'd only cultivated so much of the surrounding area as farm land, and they only had one small, automated harvester.

Anthea nudged one of the containers with her foot. "They seem alright. Seals don't seem to be broken."

"No, our cellar is dry," her husband said. "It looks like we need to make that supply run sooner than later."

"I have some flour, enough to last a day or two," Anthea told him. "We should distribute this, or have someone make enough bread to keep everyone going while we're gone."

"We are low on the powdered eggs, as well," Otto said. "Iliyana made a list of things we are running out of."

"Have her get it to me," Khan directed. "Quickly. Anthea, get dressed, go get Kati. Take the perishables to Iliyana, as well as anything we don't need immediately. She'll distribute them as needed while we're gone."

Anthea nodded and dashed off to the bedroom, where she quickly changed into a dark grey metallic sweater, brown suede leggings, a desert-coloured cardigan she'd picked up in San Francisco, and a pair of rugged, brown leather boots. The cardigan wasn't her usual kind of thing, but she'd found the tan, red, grey, blue, and olive green mix appealing.

It was still raining, so she pulled on a hoodout of Khan's seemingly endless collection of them, and carefully made her way down the slight hill to Kati's cabin. She found her sister-in-law still sleeping, as normal people were wont to be doing at the crack of dawn.

"What is wrong?" Kati asked, when she answered the door.

"The wheat's been ruined. Khan and I are apparently going to go on that supply run we've been talking about, and he wants you and I to redistribute our perishables while we're gone."

Kati nodded. "That is a good idea. But who will watch the children while we do this?"

Anthea shrugged. "Khan's holding a council, apparently, so as far as I'm concerned, he can keep an eye on them while we take care of this. It shouldn't take long. Bring Pandu up to the house."

Kati ducked into her bedroom and brought out the baby, throwing a blanket over him to keep the rain off.

"You need a proper coat," Anthea told her. "Let's get you one out of my wardrobe. I brought _all_ of my clothes from Earth, and I really don't need that much. I was . . . a clotheshorse."

Inigo and Chin had joined Otto and Khan by this time. Anthea greeted them, then asked her husband, "Will you watch Nolan and Pandu while we take care of the food? It shouldn't take long. We can put the baby in Nolan's crib."

"Yes, that's fine," Khan said with a short nod.

Nolan was awake, so Anthea got him out of his crib and let him play with Spot while they put Pandu in his crib.

"We need to get you a proper bed for him," Anthea said to her sister-in-law, as the two women went into the master bedroom. "And maybe a bigger house. You can't raise a child in that small thing."

She dragged out a box from the closet Khan had built her, amused that he'd thought to do so. His and hers closets. Their cabin wasn't a ramshackle pioneer affair, but a sprawling house that just happened to be made of logs. It wasn't her brownstone in London, with so many fond memories, but she loved it all the same.

"It works for now," Kati said. "I think Yves and I will build a larger home in the spring."

Anthea froze with the lid half off the crate. "Pardon?"

Her sister-in-law grinned. "Yves and I . . . he came to me last night and told me he loves me."

With an answering grin, Anthea got to her feet and hugged Kati. "I'm so happy for you! And it's about time, too!"

She turned her attention back to the clothes. "We'll go through the rest of this later, perhaps give some of it out to the other women, if they'll fit them. There are a few things I've hung on to that will never fit me again, not after two babies. For now . . ."

She pulled out a calf-length, navy blue trench coat with hidden buttons. "This should fit you. Try it on."

Kati took the coat and slipped into it. She was two inches taller than Anthea, but the coat still fit well. "Yes, this will work."

"Then it's yours." Anthea closed the box. "Let's get that food to Iliyana."

Together, the two women gathered up the reconstituted foods in the "refrigerator"-one of the cryotubes, reconfigured and repurposed as cold storage-and carried them across the village to Iliyana's cabin. The Ukrainian woman was the most skilled cook and had rapidly become the one in charge of rations and food preparation.

"Thank you for this," the woman said stiffly, as she took the food. It was obvious that she was worried. She'd never been particularly friendly, and the stress made her short with her visitors.

"Khan is bringing our wheat down," Anthea told her. "We're going on a supply run as soon as we have this situation . . . calmed down. I want these things to be spread out as much as you can."

Iliyana blinked green eyes at her, mouth open. "I . . . Yes, I will, my lady."

"_Please_, call me Anthea. Oh, and Otto said you have a list of things we need?"

"Yes, I . . . Here."

Iliyana fetched it from her table and handed it over. "This is just an idea of things we could use."

"I'll do what I can to get them," Anthea assured her.

It wasn't until they were headed back up the hill that Kati remarked, "You are doing well with your arm."

Anthea stopped on the path and looked at her arm. The rain had turned, for the moment, to a drizzle. "I hadn't even noticed. It's been the bane of my existence the past few days, and I . . ."

"Yves does good work," Kati said.

"Yes, he does." Then Anthea smirked. "And if he's good at anything _else_, I don't want to know."

Kati flushed, and Anthea laughed. "Come on, let's get dry."

* * *

Anthea dug through her box of older clothing and pulled out a few things she thought would fit Kati. Their styles were very different, she reflected as she set aside a few blouses and a skirt that didn't fit her rounder frame.

"I used to be skinnier," she commented. "Smaller busted, too. Khan never complained, but I can tell he likes the new girls better."

Kati snorted. "Men."

"These should work for you. I haven't any extra shoes, my feet are a size smaller than yours. I'm just glad I got enough shoes in enough sizes to fit everyone."

Her sister-in-law nodded as she held up a dark blue blouse with silver embroidery at neck and cuff. "This is lovely."

"I thought so, too, but I never wore it much. And now, well . . ." Anthea shrugged.

Kati poked through the box, noting a brilliant turquoise fabric with silver beading and little mirrors. She pulled it out. "Oh, this is beautiful!"

Anthea found herself reaching for the kaftan before Kati even had it out of the crate. She forced herself not to snatch it away. "My mum gave that to me. Funnily enough, she and Dad picked it up on a trip to India. Mumbai, I think. I was wearing that the day I bought my wedding dress."

"So it is special, then." Kati carefully folded it and handed it over. "You must miss them. Your parents."

Feeling tears pricking at her eyes, Anthea blinked them away rapidly. "Yes. Very much. But I couldn't- It was a choice between staying with them, or going with Khan, and . . . My choice will always be Khan."

Kati reached over and patted her arm. "As his sister, I am pleased to hear that. But as your friend . . . I wish there was some way we could . . . bring them here."

Anthea smiled. "Yes, I would love to see them again. It's just so complicated. You know that I betrayed the Federation when I stole you from Starfleet and came here? I can't go back to Federation space without risking a court martial or worse. I lied a little when I told James Kirk he has no authority here. If he'd wanted to, he could very well have hauled me back to Earth to stand trial."

"Stand trial for rescuing your husband from an unjust imprisonment?"

She nodded. "In their eyes, it wasn't unjust. Khan . . . orchestrated a terrorist attack on the USS Kelvin Memorial Archive, convinced a man named Thomas Harewood to blow the place up. Forty-two men and women, Harewood included, died. I liked Harewood . . . And he attacked Starfleet Headquarters, killed a captain and an admiral, killed Admiral Marcus, and crashed the Vengeance into San Francisco. He killed a lot of people, even if I completely understand why and even agree with him to an extent."

Kati tipped her head and studied Anthea. "I see. Does it bother you that he did these things?"

Anthea was quiet for a long moment, running her fingers over the silk of the kaftan. "Sometimes," she admitted. "Not Admiral Marcus. If I could, I would kill him myself. And I recognise that crashing into San Francisco was an accident, so to speak. He was aiming for Headquarters, at the edge of the city, and the ship didn't make it that far. He never intended for all those civilians to die. But Christopher Pike and Thomas Harewood? Their deaths bother me sometimes. I like Admiral Pike, from the few occasions we met. And Tom . . . I worked with him directly for a time. I knew him. I'm the one that told him about Lucille, his daughter. The one Khan healed."

"And you feel responsible?"

"Not . . . entirely, no. It's more complicated than that. For a long time, I had no idea why Khan- You see, at the time, I knew him as John Harrison. I was married to John Harrison, and in private, I was Anthea Harrison. It was nearly a year after he disappeared that I found out who he really was, that John had never existed. I had a year of not knowing _why_, only that for some reason, my husband had gone crazy and killed over twelve thousand people. And when I learned what Marcus had done, and who Khan really was . . . It took time to reconcile it all in my head. Sometimes I still have difficulty. I love Khan as he is, but . . ."

She put the kaftan back in the box, to save for warmer weather. "Sometimes, every once in a while, I can't help but miss John."

* * *

In the hallway outside the bedroom, Khan paused with his hand raised to push the door open. He let it fall to his side as his wife's words reached him.

Why had it not occurred to him that she still mourned John Harrison? She'd accepted him so readily when he'd awoken from his imprisonment, it hadn't even crossed his mind that she might, in some small way, see him and his alias as two separate men.

Khan wasn't angered or hurt by her words, just a little saddened. They'd done things together when he was John that he couldn't do with her as Khan. While _he_ knew he was the same man, he could see how she would perceive a difference.

When they went on this trip, he would do something nice for her, something like he had done as John Harrison. A proper . . . date.

He smiled to himself at the thought, at the silliness of it, and knew he'd do it anyway. For her, he'd do anything.

Deciding not to interrupt, he went back to where his men waited, to finalise his plans.


	9. Chapter Eight

**-Chapter Eight-**

When plans were finalised, Khan went to Anthea to inform her of them. Kati had finally left, likely to visit Yves at the medbay, and his wife was in Nolan's room, playing with their son.

He lowered himself to the floor and picked up Spot, amusing himself by playing keep-away with Nolan for a moment.

"You and I will go, and take Nolan," he told her. "We're the most familiar with everything modern, besides Marla. And we might as well bring her along, with Barton. Yves and Kati will also come, because I want our doctor with us, for you, and it would be cruel to separate the two of them at this stage."

"Dada!" Nolan protested. "Spot mine!"

"So Kati told you Yves finally made a move?" Anthea asked with a smile. "Khan, give Nolan the tribble."

"She's over the moon about it," he said, as he handed the ball of fur to his son. "We'll leave in the morning. Otto and Chin are in charge, as usual."

He climbed to his feet, pausing to ruffle Nolan's mop of black hair. "Pack a variety of things, I'm not certain where we're going or what the climate will be. Oh, and take something nice, as well."

Anthea arched a brow. "Something nice?" she repeated. "What are you planning?"

Khan smirked. "That, my dear, you will have to wait to see."

* * *

Nolan wandered in, Spot in his arms, while Anthea was packing. Part of packing to leave Earth had had her using her personal luggage to wardrobe storage, which made packing for _this_ trip a lot easier, with no crate to lug around.

"What doing?" her son asked, peering into the suitcase.

"Mummy's packing for a trip we're going on."

Nolan's blue eyes were wide. "Twip?"

"Yes, we're going to take the ship and go visit another planet, to get things we need. Like shopping. You're too little to remember, but Mummy and Grandma would take you shopping with us when she came to visit."

He scrunched his little face up for a moment, then said, "Gamma! 'Membew Gamma. Miss Gamma!"

"I miss Grandma, too," Anthea said softly.

Sometimes, she missed her mother so much that it was a physical ache. But she couldn't contact Martha Mackintosh, not with Starfleet looking for her and Khan.

She forced those melancholy thoughts aside and finished packing clothes for herself and Khan, a variety of layering things for weather ranging from sunny to snowy. She did the same for Nolan; his small clothes took up only a tiny part of the suitcase.

"And Daddy will need to lift that," she told Nolan, "because Mummy couldn't possibly. It's too heavy."

"I help!" her son declared, and tugged at the handle.

Predictably, it didn't move. Anthea smothered a grin and ruffled his hair. "You are a _big_ help, sweetie. Thank you."

Inside her, the baby moved, and Anthea rubbed a hand over her belly as she sat on the ege of the bed. Sarina's movements still weren't strong enough for anyone else to feel them, but she could.

"Mama?" Nolan put Spot down on the floor and reached up to pat Anthea's stomach. "Tummy!"

"Yes, that's Mummy's tummy. Do you know what's inside Mummy's tummy?"

He shook his head, dark hair falling in his eyes.

Anthea swept it off his forehead, running her fingers down his cheek. She loved her little boy so much, there were times she could barely contain the emotion. "Mummy and Daddy are having a baby. You're going to have a sister in a few months."

"Pandu izza baby!"

"That's right! Pandu is your cousin. Auntie Kati adopted him. He wasn't born to her, like you were to me, but he's your cousin."

Nolan pulled himself up on the bed and leaned against her, his short legs sticking straight off the edge of the mattress. "Whas 'dopted?"

"Pandu's mummy and daddy couldn't take care of him anymore, so Khan, your daddy, brought him to live here, so Kati could have a baby and raise him. He's still little right now, not as big as you, but soon, you'll be able to play together."

He considered this, then reached over and patted her stomach again. "Baby in hewe?"

"Mm-hmm. She's just little right now, but soon, you'll be able to feel her moving."

Nolan's brow furrowed. "You _eat_ her?"

Anthea laughed. "No, sweetie, I didn't eat her. I'll tell you when you're older how we make babies."

"Better you than me," Khan said from the doorway, with a wry grin.

"Mmm, I think I'll let you handle the talk with Nolan, and I'll deal with Sarina," his wife said. "Unless you want to tell her about girl troubles."

He made a face. "No, I don't want to. Fine. I'll handle the boys, you handle the girls."

She kissed the top of Nolan's head, then stood. "You're assuming we're having more than two."

Khan went to her, pulling her flush against him. "I want as many as we're able to stand without wanting to kill them."

Anthea snickered. "At least wait 'til Sarina's born before making judgements like that. You may change your mind when she's screaming in the middle of the night."

"Never," he said, and kissed her.

Nolan jumped off the bed and threw himself at Khan's leg, latching on with arms and legs. His parents broke apart with mutual laughs, and Khan picked up his son. Setting the boy against his side, he asked Anthea, "Are you done packing?"

She nodded. "I think I'm going to nap, now. I've had an exhausting day."

"Alright. But we're leaving in two hours. I want to get out, get this done, and get back as quickly as we can. Come on, Nolan, you can help me get the ship through preflight and warmup, and I'll show you the warp drive Daddy designed."

Anthea stretched out on the bed as they left, smiling broadly at the retreating backs of her boys.

* * *

That evening, the departing party boarded the _Reliance_. Anthea settled into the navigator's seat on the small bridge, pulling up a list of nearby systems. Nolan sat on Khan's lap, where he occupied the captain/pilot seat.

"Just like old times, hmm?" Khan murmured to Anthea as he controlled the lift of the ship from the ground.

"Not quite," his wife said, with a glance at their toddler. "We didn't have _him_ with us on the trip to Betazed."

"That is very true. We should go back there sometime. As for this expedition, where are we going?"

Kati came onto the bridge, seating herself at the unused communications station. "I want to see everything," she said to no one in particular. "I was asleep already when we left Earth."

Anthea turned to her sister-in-law. "Does Yves want to see this, too? Wait 'til we get out of the atmosphere and you can see the nebula."

"Yves doesn't like flying," Khan put in. "He should be fine once we're actually out in space, but he can't stand seeing the ground so far beneath him."

"Really? That's . . . kind of charming, actually. I'm so used to men who are fine with flying around."

"It is his fear of heights," Kati told her. "He gets vertigo."

"Which is something that you can't really plan for in genetics," Khan remarked. "Genetics studies in the twentieth century managed to create us, but they weren't good enough to locate that one, tiny bit of chromosome that controls inner ear problems."

Anthea raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure we'd be able to fix that now."

Khan shook his head. "He won't let me."

The ship reached the edges of the atmosphere, the blue of the sky gradually giving way to a vast expanse of stars. Kati gasped at the sight of the rainbow nebula, vast enough that it served as a vibrant backdrop for the majority of the small system.

"Ohh," she said. "It is amazing!"

Khan triggered a channel to the medbay. "Yves, get up here. We've left the atmosphere."

In a few moments, the doctor joined them on the bridge. He was stunned speechless by the view, wordlessly moving to stand behind Kati's chair.

"This is one of the reasons I chose this system," Anthea said aloud. "It's far enough away that the radiation won't affect us on the planet, and the ship's shielding protects us here, but it's such a lovely visual."

"You chose well," Khan told her. "Even if Kirk managed to locate us within months."

"He operates on sheer, dumb luck," Anthea muttered. "Now, where should we go? Let's avoid the fringes of Federation space. Betazed is a little close to the edge of that for my comfort, to be honest, though I do want to go back there one day."

Nolan was completely enraptured by the viewscreen as Khan manipulated the controls on his chair to bring up a star chart. As a prototype for the _USS Vengeance_, the pilot of the _Reliance_ could manage all shipboard controls from the captain's chair if needed.

"Nausicaa?" Anthea suggested.

Khan scanned the data displayed. "No. Too high-profile and too close to the Federation. And given their general lack of water, they won't have the foodstuffs we're looking for."

He continued scrolling through. Kati interrupted with, "Did that say '18 Puppies'?"

"18 Puppis," her brother corrected. "Though I can see why you thought otherwise."

"Elora," Anthea suggested. "Well away from Federation space, but they've had First Contact. Humanoids, Class M planet, atmosphere similar to ours. Does trade with Ferenginar, amongst others, so they'll take gold pressed latinum."

"Everyone trades with the Ferengi," Khan muttered. "So. Elora it is."

As he programmed a course, Anthea turned to Kati and Yves. "You'll want to sit down for this," she said.

Yves move to sit in the only other unoccupied chair. Khan glanced over at him, to make sure he was properly seated, then pushed the lever that would take them to warp.

The engines rumbled, space outside distorted, and then streaked into a blue tunnel.

"Congratulations," Anthea told their companions. "You're now going more than eight times the speed of light."

"But . . . I do not feel different," Kati said.

Khan turned in his seat, free to converse now that they were at warp. "Gravity generators, inertial dampeners, a host of other technology. Amazing, isn't it?"

"Yes," Yves said slowly. "And frightening beyond measure."

"It's astonishing," Anthea said, "how often those two things coincide."


	10. Chapter Nine

_A/N: Where did all my readers go?_

* * *

**-Chapter Nine-**

Elora was a full day's journey from Sitara. Everyone quickly grew bored of the view at warp, and returned to doing other things. Anthea put Nolan to bed, and slept herself. She wasn't able to stay up all night, piloting the ship like Khan could, especially now that she was pregnant, and still sick. Everything wore her out.

When she rejoined him in the morning, she pressed a kiss to his temple. "Did you sleep at all? You know Barton could have spelled you for a bit, if necessary."

"No," he murmured. "We'll get a room at a nice hotel tonight, if there are any, and I'll sleep then."

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Just don't make yourself exhausted." Anthea sat down at the navigator's station and pulled up the file on their destination.

"And how did _you_ sleep?" he inquired.

"As well as I could with indigestion, a leg that wouldn't stop twitching, and Nolan kicking me in the back."

He chuckled. "You could have put him in the cabin across the hall, like before."

"And leave him unsupervised? Hardly. I'm not an idiot. Anyway, he's in with Kati now, 'helping' her with Pandu. He's full of questions about babies, now that I've told him about my pregnancy, and I figured I'd let her field some of them for a while."

"I thought you _liked_ Kati," Khan said, feigning shock.

She stuck her tongue out at him and returned to what she was doing.

"You know, I was thinking last night, lying in bed _without you_, that your Starfleet file said you were born to Richard and Sara Harrison in Dover," Anthea commented, as she reviewed the information on Elora, "and that you were on Tarsus IV."

"Sara was close to Sarina," he said, after a long moment. "And obviously, I was never anywhere near Tarsus IV."

"I'd noted it in your file, but given what I've heard about what happened there, I didn't want to bring it up," she told him. It was then that she looked up, to study him. "Asking about surviving a starving colony that resorted to cannibalism? I did _not_ want to know."

He grimaced, recalling times when he and his people had been in hiding, when food had been scarce. Even just thinking about how bad it _could_ have gotten was enough to turn his stomach. "Though I wasn't there, I was thoroughly briefed as part of my cover. It's one of the reasons I'm so concerned about our people. Tarsus IV had a poisoned wheat supply. Ours is moldy. I would really rather our people not turn to eating each other."

Anthea gagged. "I'm with you on that one, darling. Out of curiosity, if I _had_ asked about it, what would you have said?"

"That I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to add that to the lies I was already forced to tell you."

She reached over to squeeze his shoulder. "You know, I assumed, when you told me about your mum dying when you were little, and being raised by others, that you ended up on Tarsus IV and that was when you lost your sister. There was nothing in the file about your supposed parents, other than their names, and no siblings listed, so . . ."

"Obviously, now, you know that isn't true. But that would have been what I would have said, if pressed. It's a very good cover, really, to keep people from asking questions. No one wants to talk to a survivor of Tarsus IV about what they saw, after all." He shook his head, impatiently brushed at the hair that fell in his face.

Anthea ran her fingers through his hair. "You could use a trim. Maybe find a barber while we're on Elora. But don't cut it all off. I love it the way you had it when you were John."

He turned those multi-hued blue eyes her way. "I overheard what you said to Kati. About missing John Harrison."

"Oh. I . . . can explain."

"You do not need to. I understand." He reached up to put his hand over hers, where it rested on his shoulder. "You didn't marry _me_. I know that I am the same man, essentially, but I courted you as John Harrison, and I _married_ you as John Harrison. I didn't do those things as _myself_, and you've had to live with me, a man you don't know. Our life on Sitara is so different from the one we had on Earth, and there was no transition for us. Not a proper one."

Anthea turned her hand in his, weaving her fingers with his, her ring catching and turning to her palm as she did. Unconsciously, he turned it back around. "It _has_ been jarring," she admitted. "But I love you."

"I know you do. I still feel that I need to . . . make more of an effort. You didn't come into our marriage expecting to be the queen of a civilization, no matter how small."

"I didn't, no. I've been unprepared for most of this, and . . . I _do_ sometimes feel as if I don't really know you. There's so much of you, as _Khan_, that I don't know. You're right. I love you, I can't help but love you and I always will, hopelessly, but I married John Harrison, and sometimes that life seems so far away."

He lifted her hand, pressed his lips to her knuckles. "When I was John, I was . . . free to do things I had never really been before. First I was a soldier, then I was a prince, a king, and . . . I didn't do things like go to nightclubs and make love to my wife in private lounges on New Year's. And while I was enslaved by Starfleet, I was still . . . free of the constraints of being _me_. I cannot really afford to be like that on Sitara, and I'm afraid you have paid the price."

"Oh, sweetheart. No." She moved from the navigator's station to sit, somewhat awkwardly, across his lap. "Khan, it's selfish of me to want things I can't have, like that. I knew this would be difficult when I left Earth. And, yes, I do miss dragging you dancing, and lying together on the roof, watching what few stars we could see. I miss going for Chinese and laughing at the stupid fortunes in the cookies, adding silly phrases to the end. I miss us piling into that chair by the fire in our study, you reading Dickens to me on Christmas Eve. But because of Marcus, this was our only choice, and I'm okay with that."

Khan cupped her face in his hands, ran his thumb over her cheek. "That man is still within me," he whispered. "But I don't know how to be him, and to be Khan Noonien Singh, at the same time."

Anthea shifted to rest her head on his shoulder, her face against his neck. "Just be _you_. Don't worry about how your people see you. They know you after this long. You don't need to rule them by making them fear you. But if you need to keep parts back, just for me and our children, that's okay, too. Just be with me, be yourself with me. I think that's what . . . I think that's what you were with me, as John. You were _you_. Not the ruler, the brother, the protector. You were just the man I love."

"One forced to design weapons for a madman."

"I wish I could go back in time and get a few punches in before you squished him," she said, and he laughed.

She rose from his lap, and he caught her hand before she left.

"We'll make that a tradition," he told her.

"What?"

"Dickens on Christmas Eve. Even if it's the middle of summer on Sitara, and our lunar year is longer than the Federation's stardate year. We'll read Dickens to our children."

Anthea leaned over and kissed the top of his head. "I'd like that. Now, I'm going to go rescue Kati. How soon 'til we arrive?"

He checked the readouts. "A few hours."

"Mm. Maybe I'll leave Nolan where he is for a bit. Take a break from this, now that Barton is awake."

His thumb found her palm, rubbing in a circle. "Did you have anything particular in mind?"

"What do _you_ think, genius?"

* * *

Kati came in briefly, wanting to see what the exit from warp looked like, but soon retreated to join Yves where he was hiding in the Medbay. Anthea didn't really have anything to _do_ as co-pilot, but she was there just in case Khan had to split his attention and she would be needed.

"Kati says she and Yves are moving in together," she told Khan as he piloted the ship down into the atmosphere of Elora.

"Yes, he asked me for permission to move into the larger cabin that Yosef vacated when he moved in with Iliyana, since it's significantly larger than Kati's."

"I was a little alarmed at the speed they're moving, but then again, they've known each other how long?"

"Years," her husband confirmed. "And we married after seven weeks of involvement."

"I note you didn't say 'dating'," she said wryly.

"I wouldn't call that a proper courtship," he returned, cutting his eyes over to her briefly.

"Yes, that was definitely more of a siege-and-conquer," Anthea murmured.

His deceptively mild retort was, "_Veni, vidi, vici._"

Anthea pretended to slug him in the arm. "You owe me, then."

"Which is why I had you bring something nice." He grabbed her hand, giving it a brief squeeze before letting go. "There are a lot of things I owe you, and a proper date is one of them. After all, how long has it been since just the two of us did something together, that didn't have to do with Starfleet duties?"

"Earlier, in our cabin," she said sweetly.

Khan narrowed his eyes.

"Yes, yes, I know. I think it's been . . . Valentine's, 2259, really." She shook her head. "That was a while ago."

"Precisely."

She eyed him speculatively, wondering just what he had in mind.


	11. Chapter Ten

**-Chapter Ten-**

The Eloran people were humanoid, slightly shorter on average than Anthea, with bat-like ears, genuinely _pink_ skin, and beady, dark eyes. Other than Commander Spock of the _USS Enterprise_, and Kati's adopted son Pandu, neither Kati or Yves had seen an "alien" before, and they were fascinated. Barton, who had fought Klingons, and Khan were less impressed.

Khan and Yves left the women with Barton to shop while they secured the more boring purchases, such as bedframes, mattresses, small power generators, and the most important of all: proper toilets with recycler units for waste disposal, so much better than the outhouses they'd been using. All of the essentials would fill the hold by the time they finished purchasing food and anything else Khan could get his hands on. Anthea knew that anything _she_ bought would go in the empty crew cabins, as they'd be smaller.

They wandered the market for a few hours. Marla found some art supplies in a nearby shop, mostly paints and canvas she would stretch herself. Barton was happy to carry the bulky purchases for his girlfriend. Anthea was relieved to see that the attraction between them seemed genuine.

While the Eloran people had large cities, much like Earth did, and indoor shopping centres, the party from Sitara had arrived during a massive street fair. Everywhere they looked, there were booths and stalls selling everything from food to clothing.

"Oh!" Kati stopped by a stall hawking dyes and paints for the face and body. "This is like mehndi, back home!"

Anthea looked blank.

"Henna," Marla supplied. To Kati, she said, "My first dormmate at the Academy was from India. She was Punjabi, I think? Anyway, she showed me how to do henna one night, it's really neat."

"If I got these, would you help me apply them sometime?" Kati asked, eyes bright.

"Sure."

The men rejoined them after a few hours. After a while of listening to Marla and Kati chat like old friends, Anthea was ready to scream. Khan's reappearance at her side came just in time to properly distract her.

"Hi!" she said enthusiastically, pleased beyond belief to see him. "Did you get everything?"

"Most. Some of the furniture items need to be collected from a warehouse in the next city over, and will be here tomorrow. And some of our food supplies, as well." Khan slid his arm around her waist and kissed her forehead. "You look as if you're about to murder someone," he whispered.

She laughed. "Kati and Marla have made me realised just how much girl talk I _don't_ understand anymore. I had that with Lindy once, but . . . Starfleet sort of beat it out of me."

Anthea paused by a stall. Khan stopped to see what had caught her eye. The table held an array of hand-spun and dyed yarns in colours ranging from soft to bold. His wife picked up a soft, nubbly yarn in ivory, with little bits of blue and purple shot through it.

"That suits you," he said.

"It's gorgeous, isn't it? Unfortunately, I don't know how to make anything with it."

Marla, just around the table's corner with a cream and brown yarn in her hands, said, "I can teach you how to crochet."

Anthea arched a brow. "Crochet?"

"Yeah, it's where you use this hook and make loops with the yarn in certain ways to make fabric." Delighted to have a one-up on Anthea for once, Marla picked up a tool off the table and held it up. "I'm sure they call it something else here, but this is the hook you use. They come in different sizes for different types of yarns. My grandmother taught me how, though it's kind of a lost art on Earth."

Anthea blinked grey eyes at the other woman, then shrugged. "Why not? It will definitely give me something to do in the coming months."

Marla helped her pick out a stash of yarns and some hooks, and a loom for knitting. "This is easier for some people," she said. "Than the needles, I mean. You just go around in a circle, or back and forth, instead of fiddling with the needles."

"Thank you," Anthea said sincerely. "Maybe . . . I can make scarves for everyone."

"You'll need a lot of yarn for that," the redhead said with amusement.

Khan, watching the exchange in silence, said, "We can do it."

To the vendor, he said, "How much for what we have here?"

When the woman named a rather low price, he said, "We'll take it all. All of your wares."

She, his wife, his sister, and Marla all stared at him.

"_All_ of it?" Anthea repeated.

Khan looked amused. "When will we be back for more?"

". . . You have a point. Alright."

He reached into the inner pocket of his coat, pulled out a locking case, and opened it to remove four strips of gold pressed latinum. After a moment, he pulled out a fifth and handed it over. "To support you while you restock," he told the vendor.

She babbled thanks at him and stuffed the strips down her shirt, before quickly gathering everything and stuffing it into boxes. It took all of them, save for Anthea who carried Pandu with Nolan tagging along at her side, to carry their purchases away.

"That was generous of you," Anthea told her husband.

"She priced her goods far too low," he said. "For her skill, she should be charging double her asking price. I don't balk from paying fair value for things."

Since their haul was rather bulky, it was easiest to take it all back to the ship before continuing. Kati offered to stay behind with the children, to make the rest of the shopping easier, but Anthea pointed out that she wouldn't benefit from the ability to choose things herself.

Kati was entranced by the fabric sellers, with their bolts of fabric, spools of thread, and other goods. "Oooh!"

Anthea interlaced her fingers with Khan's. "How long has she been into sewing?"

"Always," he said. "She wasn't trained as a soldier, though I taught her to defend herself. Her epilepsy made her a liability in battle. I know now that when our mother died, the people who . . . raised us considered . . . terminating her, but they didn't."

His sister turned to them, eyes bright. "Can we, Khan? I would love more to work with!"

He gestured with a smile, telling her to go ahead.

"You're feeling indulgent today," his wife remarked.

"I've thought twice now that I lost her. For so long, she's been the only one who really mattered. Until I met you, of course. I've taken care of her our whole lives. I think a little indulgence, especially now, is called for."

Kati ended up buying six full bolts of fabric, dozens of spools of thread, and so many beads and gems that Anthea couldn't keep track of it all.

"And what are you planning on _making_?" Anthea asked. She and Kati had stopped at a baked goods vendor for snacks, while the men took the purchases back to the ship.

Kati picked at her sweet roll, popping an iced piece into her mouth. "I am thinking, with the blue and green, a wedding dress. For when I marry Yves."

"Has he asked yet?" Marla inquired.

"No, but he will."

The redhead frowned. "How can you know?"

Kati shrugged. "Because we are in love, and we have already discussed it."

Anthea picked up Nolan, using a wipe from her crossbody bag to clean off his face and hands. "I should not have given you sugar," she muttered. "Khan and I got married really soon after we got together. We were actually discussing that on the way here. We eloped to Betazed so Marcus couldn't interfere."

"Would you do it over again?" Kati asked.

"Definitely. But sometimes, I wish we'd gone for the full thing. I barely had a wedding dress, let alone a cake and presents."

"We should have a proper wedding for you," her sister-in-law pronounced. "So that you can marry Khan, not this John Harrison person. And, I think, it will help our people see you as our queen."

Marla shook her head. "I don't understand this king and queen business. I know Khan was this important ruler back in the twentieth century, but . . ."

Kati's dark eyes were serious. "Our people have been through much. They look to Khan as their saviour and protector. Too, they view Anthea in a similar way, because we all know how she rescued us. But we were not here for your marriage, and so it feels a bit unreal."

Anthea shrugged and patted her stomach, now definitely a bump. "Maybe after this baby is born."

Kati nodded. "It will take me time to make you a dress, anyway."

"I'm not going to get out of this, am I?" Anthea asked.

"No," Kati said with a grin.

Marla snorted.

The men rejoined them then, to escort them to the _Reliance_, to get their luggage and find a hotel. They were a block from the shipyard when two men jumped out of an alley, armed with knives. Apparently, they had seen Khan's stash of money, and wanted it.

Khan reacted without hesitation, driving a fist straight between the first man's eyes. He dropped like a rock. The second man went for Anthea.

Adrenaline shoved her into overdrive, all of her long-forgotten hand-to-hand combat training surging up from the depths, along with the strength and speed Khan's blood had dubiously gifted to her. She dropped Nolan's leash, grabbed the man's arm as he swung the blade at her, and snapped it backwards at the elbow. As he screamed, she hooked a leg behind his, tripped him, and used her weight to bear him to the ground.

She had the second mugger pinned by the time Khan turned her way, the man's knife in her hand and at his throat.

"You picked the wrong tourists to mug," she snarled.

Khan snickered. "Let him up, my love. The authorities seem to be on their way."

Anthea realised she was kneeling on the mugger's chest, and dropped the knife. She nearly fell when getting to her feet. Khan caught her around the waist, pulling her against him.

"You're trembling," he told her. "Are you alright?"

"No, I don't feel . . . at all well," she whispered. "I think I'm . . . going to-"

She slumped in his arms as the local police force finally got there. Khan dragged Anthea off to one side, Barton and Marla taking over explaining what had happened while Yves pulled out his medkit and tricorder.

"Her adrenaline levels are off the readings," the doctor murmured. "Blood pressure and heart rate, as well. I think we have found a trigger for her . . . changes."

"A trial by fire I would rather she not endure," Khan muttered to the doctor. "Will she be alright?"

Before Yves could answer, one of the Eloran constables came over to speak to him.

"Is she hurt?" the man asked, looking with concern at the prone woman on the ground.

"She's pregnant," Khan told him. "And the shock of it all . . . Well, she fainted. I'm sure she'll be alright. She wasn't injured."

They insisted on having their own medic check her out. She was coming to by the time that woman arrived.

"Can you tell me your name?" the medic asked, as she shined a light in Anthea's eyes.

"Thea," she croaked. "Thea Singh."

Khan exchanged a look with his sister. Even groggy from passing out, Anthea's survival instinct kept her identity veiled. After all, Starfleet was looking for Anthea Mackintosh.

He picked up his frightened son, gently patting Nolan's back. "Mummy's fine," he whispered to the toddler. "She's just resting."

"Mama!" Nolan wailed.

Anthea sat up, pushing away the medic. "Hand him here," she said.

Khan wanted to protest, but he recognised the look on his wife's face. He set Nolan down and the boy threw himself at his mother, crawling into her lap. Anthea wrapped her arms around Nolan and kissed the top of his head. "It's alright, sweetie. Mummy's fine."

The constable asked if they were interested in pressing charges. Wryly, Khan said, "No, I believe that they've learned their lesson. Don't mug people, they might be skilled in martial arts."

Yves and the medic finished checking Anthea's vitals, and the medic said she should rest but otherwise seemed to be fine. Khan helped Anthea to her feet.

"I suppose we'll get that hotel now," he said, and asked for recommendations.

"I want to lie down," Anthea told her husband, as the police left with their prisoners.

"Soon," Khan assured her. "Let's go get rooms, and get you a soak in a tub, hmm?"

"I haven't had a proper bath since San Francisco," she told him. She still looked a little woozy. "I'm sick of showers."

"I know, my love." He tightened his arm around her waist. "And maybe, I'll buy you a hot tub."

Anthea leaned into him, Nolan's small hands tight in her hair. "Not too hot, because of the baby. But I'd like that."

Khan exchanged a look with Yves, then swept Anthea and Nolan into his arms. With the others close behind, he made for the hotel.


End file.
